COTA for Lenna

Our Story

This is our sweet Lenna. She was born August 12, 2021. When I was about 20 weeks pregnant, the doctors found a mass on one of Lenna’s lungs. They monitored it through the pregnancy and after birth. They knew she would need surgery but decided to wait till she was a little older and stronger. On May 4, 2022, we headed to Banner Desert Hospital for a fairly simple procedure and an expected 2-3 day post op stay.

A few days post op, Lenna developed an air leak which made them keep the chest tube in from the surgery. The air leak took forever to heal, and while we were there Lenna also developed CMV (a virus) which caused some of her blood work levels to go down. Finally, on June 3, we went home. We were thrilled to be back together as a family with our other 2 kids, Lucy and Jackson. Lenna was pretty needy for the next few days trying to find her groove again and still healing.

On Thursday the 9th, Lenna was incredibly lethargic. I felt really weird about it but tried to ignore it because I really didn’t want to go back to the hospital. By noon, we had realized her eyes were yellow and something wasn’t right. So, I took her to the Banner Desert ER. They ran tests and decided to admit her to try to figure out what was wrong. By Friday they found that it was probably her liver and it wasn’t functioning the way it needed to be. Her liver enzymes were incredibly high, as was her INR. We took an ambulance that night from Banner to Phoenix Children’s Hospital. By the next morning, they knew she was in acute liver failure. And by Saturday night, she was listed A1 status on a liver transplant list.

By some miracle, they found a liver and accepted the offer on June 15th. The next 24 hours were slow and full of impatience. At 1pm on June 16th, Lenna went into the OR to have her liver transplant surgery done.

Now we are on the road to recovery. For the time being, that means staying at the hospital. And someday, we will be home will the rest of our kids, and we can’t wait!

We have partnered with the Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) for assistance with a lifetime of transplant-related expenses. Please consider donating to COTA in honor of Lenna.

The Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) helps children and young adults who need a life-saving transplant by providing fundraising assistance and family support. COTA is the nation’s only fundraising organization solely dedicated to raising life-saving dollars in honor of transplant-needy children and young adults. 100% of each contribution made to COTA in honor of our patients helps meet transplant-related expenses. COTA’s services are free to our families, and gifts to COTA are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.